IT was a relief to see some Russian football hooligans on TV. Russians are often portrayed as the baddies in popular culture, especially in Hollywood thrillers or spy novels, and there are a million different ways to be a Russian villain: he might be a cruel KGB operative, or a soulless soldier in a furry hat.

Maybe he’s a blank-eyed, barrel-chested general advocating nuclear war, a smooth spy, or an oligarch snapping his fingers to order that his rivals be destroyed. Popular culture seems to love a Russian bad guy as they bring a terrifying mix of stern ideology, an even sterner accent, and nuclear firepower. Recently, though, there has been no need for fictional Soviet villains as the Russians have emerged once again as a real threat.

They are no longer cartoon baddies from Cold War novels and films. They demand to be taken seriously again and there are plenty of moves afoot to demonstrate their intentions.

Russian actions in Crimea, sabre-rattling with the Baltic states, their alleged meddling in American politics … every week there is more worrying news that the Russian Bear is rearing up and wanting to claw back its old superpower status.

You could argue this is potentially a more frightening time than the Cold War because the chess board was carefully laid out in that era, and each side knew the appalling consequences of a wrong move. These days, the pieces have been scattered all over the board and some of us don’t even know if we’re playing black or white.

So I was glad to see Russia’s Hooligan Army, BBC2, Thursday as it gave us an old-fashioned type of Russian bad guy, the football hooligan, someone who seemed to have emerged from the 1980s It let us step away, for a short while, from thoughts of sanctions and missiles. It’s just football!

A thug at a Spartak Moscow game is no threat to me… Scenes of young men, tattooed and shaven-headed, ramming into rival fans at football matches almost seem quaint. It happened in Britain on most Saturdays and made the prospect of a football game horrifying for a 1980s child like me who was baffled when my dad offered to take me to a game. “But a man will hit me with an Irn-Bru bottle!” I wailed.

Why would he want to take me to such a dangerous place? In my mind, “gaun’ tae the game” meant being helped to an ambulance with a T-shirt pressed to your head to staunch the blood.

It’s totally different now, isn’t it? Although I’ve only been to one match in my life (Dad finally persuaded me when I was 22), it’s clear the game has been made more civilised and family-friendly. No doubt there are old-school fans who think that’s a bad thing, but the whole experience seems safer. If I was seven again, and Dad invited me once more, I would no longer fear the glass Irn-Bru bottle. All that blood and hooliganism seems as 1980s as Duran Duran and roller skates.What a relief it was to see these Russian thugs boasting of their courage and muscle, of their fearlessness, and how they’re going to make mincemeat of the English fans who travel to Russia for next year’s World Cup. How nice to see Russia and not have it linked with nuclear missiles and Trump and re-armament. Yes, I felt nicely warm and cosy because this was nothing to do with me. No danger of me being on the terraces in Moscow, with thugs throwing Nazi salutes. I won’t be wandering in the freezing back streets of Moscow in an England shirt.

I’m fine. This was a world away from me, and so I watched this as a lurid spectacle, gawping at the cartoon thugs bristling with tattoos and machismo, saying they were lying in wait for the “chavs” from Leeds and Luton.

This is in Russia, and it seemed like they were just reheating England’s old 1980s violence.

It was removed from me by both time and space, so why worry?

But as this brilliant documentary progressed, it showed me exactly why I might worry. It let us have our little thrill at the baddies, with all their brawling and boasting, likening their violence to orgasm, but then it went deeper, showing us what, and who, might be motivating these people.

It seems it’s not as simple as team rivalry. These hooligans aren’t content with a brawl with the away fans every Saturday; instead, they say they are a strict and organised army, itching to take on foreign fans because they’re not fighting for the glory of their poxy local club, but for national pride.

Some of the hooligans claim Putin is their guide and inspiration. He has prodded the stereotypical Russian male – vodka-soaked and headed for an early death in his 50s – to adopt combat sports.

With Putin’s macho displays of judo he is showing the Russian man, who perhaps lost some sense of purpose and identity with the fall of the USSR, a new way to feel pride and strength, and it seems to lie in a combination of tough sports and aggressive nationalism.

It’s no wonder, then, that football hooligans have rallied to this lifestyle, and hosting the 2018 World Cup gives them a chance to put their skills as a “hooligan army”

to the test.